Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The Loving Integral Embrace of Lies and Truth (12.13.08)

For everything that exists that is good, or true, or beautiful, there is a counterfeit version of it. In fact, this is one of the surest ways to know that objective truth, beauty and morality exist, because uncorrupted human beings have a built in way to recognize sham versions of them. But the operative word is “uncorrupted,” because it seems that most people actually prefer the counterfeit to the real -- which is odd, because why would someone prefer a cheap and tawdry imitation? There must be something about real truth, beauty, and goodness that cuts both ways, and makes the corrupt soul draw away from them.

Consider the fact, for example, that nearly all totalitarian regimes, such as Iran, hold “elections.” They also have a person called “president,” as if there is any analogy at all between an Iranian president and a United States president -- but he’s just a counterfeit version. Obviously there is no meaningful liberty or democracy in Iran, but the Mullahs must nevertheless pretend they exist. Who -- or what -- are they trying to fool? In other words, why don’t they just come out and say what they actually believe? Why the tribute that totalitarianism needs to pay to liberty? No matter how deeply the mullahs are plunged into the Lie, it seems that they still know the Truth -- just as the Soviets knew the truth. They also held sham elections to give the appearance of democracy.

And it is the same way with the American left, which is why they must always either lie about their ideas or couch them in more acceptable terms -- i.e., “investments” instead of tax increases, “redeployment” instead of surrender, “affirmative action” instead of racial discrimination, “civil rights” instead of special rights, “speech codes” instead of censoring non-leftist thought. When the left uses the tired phrase “speaking truth to power,” they nearly always mean “speaking seductive lies to the powerless in order to gain power.”

And the left certainly has its sham versions of courage, for example, giving a “free speech” award to a crude thug such as Sean Penn -- as if great courage, rather than craven conformity, is required for a Hollywood celebrity to criticize President Bush. He'd better be careful -- if he's any more critical of the President, they may be forced to give him another Oscar.

Obviously counterfeit money can only work if there exists real money somewhere. The counterfeit money is entirely parasitic on the existence of sound money. Which makes the situation in American academia so ironic. American universities have become great bastions of counterfeit truth. What makes secular academia (again, we are always speaking of the liberal arts, not the sciences) such a spiritually sick institution is that it is as if only counterfeit truth is allowed. Imagine banning real money, but only allowing counterfeiters. Obviously, the counterfeit money would soon be valueless, because you couldn’t pass it off as “the real thing.” With multiculturalism, moral relativism, and deconstruction, each professor can be his own counterfeiter. Only monopoly money exists.

Yesterday I cited the example of how Dr. Dobson naively tried to use some academic “funny money” in support of truth, and was soon attacked by the counterfeiters. The same thing would happen in Iran if someone were to try to take their counterfeit democracy seriously. They would be attacked by the counterfeiters. If people learn to recognize real money, then the counterfeiters are out of business.

Likewise, the U.N. is an entirely counterfeit institution that allows dictators and tyrants to be placed on the same moral plane as liberal democracies. But who do the leftist counterfeiters denounce? John Bolton, because he sees the U.N. for the den of iniquity that it is, and is incapable of uttering counterfeit words. In the bizarro leftist world of Time Magazine, Ahmadinejad is a "champion of the dispossessed, global Everyman." Can you imagine them saying that of John Bolton, who is a genuine champion of the dispossessed -- including those who are condemned to live under the global everymonster Ahamdinejad?

Counterfeiters have always flourished in the spiritual and religious arenas. But here again there is an upside, for the existence of these phony gurus and sham versions of religion let us know that the real things exist. The “new age” movement is overflowing with counterfeit spirituality, which bears the same relationship to real spirituality as the Iranian mullahs do to real democracy, or the left does to the truly liberal vision of America’s founders.

Yesterday we were visited by one of these types, who tried to pass some counterfeit bills in the Cosmos. One thing you will notice about our regular readers is that they are like spiritual treasury agents. For them, it is the work of an instant to detect a counterfeiter trying to pass phony spiritual ideas. Most of my readers are undoubtedly rather humble, so they may not stop to think about the implications of this ability, but it obviously means that they may be more in touch with Truth than even they realize. For if you can know it by its absence, you clearly have implicit knowledge of Truth. It’s just a matter of fleshing it out and making it more explicit.

This disingenuous counterfeiter, who called himself “Integralist” this time, wrote, “Wow, I'm a bit surprised. After reading Mr. Godwin's book about a year ago and seeing his name related with the budding ‘integral movement,’ I was rather surprised to find his blog such a haven of vitriol and non-integralism (I only just discovered it after reading his enjoyable interview in What Is Enlightenment?).”

We know right off the bat that this person is a liar and a counterfeiter, even if he doesn’t know it. Just because he “read” my book doesn’t mean he actually read it, much less understood it, for if he had understood it, he would know that it is part of no movement to integrate lies with truth. He claims that he is not a leftist but an “integralist” who aspires “towards a synthesis of liberalism and conservatism, the best of both -- not an outright castigation of one extreme in favor of the other.” He says “I've only browsed your website for about an hour, but please point me to a post that embodies an integral embrace of the important aspects of Left and Right? From what I've seen it is almost a spitting image of the same sort of vitriol that you and others here seem to revile in the Dark and Evil Leftist Empire.”

The whole point of leftism is that it is a counterfeit ideology par excellence. Any truth or beauty it possesses is merely a reflection of the real thing, nothing intrinsic to it, for it must always pretend that it is promulgating ideals that it specifically rejects -- just like the mullahs. In effect, what this reader would like for me to do is integrate the counterfeiters into my world view -- the phony image of truth with Truth -- and call it “integral.”

Let’s just look at some of the institutions that have been already been taken over by the left, such as academia. Is it any coincidence that universities have become such factories of foolishness? There is no idea so crazy or stupid that it isn’t taught in a major university that will cost around $35,000 a year to pollute your child’s mind. And this is only possible because the university continues to benefit from its historical association with genuine liberalism, which promoted the pursuit of objective and timeless truth in order to actualize what is latent in the soul so as to be able to realize the good. Truth must always precede goodness. Political correctness is the very opposite of liberalism, for, as we saw yesterday, it mandates a certain narrow outcome ahead of time, thereby displacing both truth and being (from which truth flows) in one fell swoop.

Of course, leftism also represents counterfeit compassion -- which is what is so annoying about the inane term “compassionate conservatism.” For in coining this misleading term, it was as if the treasury were trying to imitate the counterfeiters, instead of vice versa. There is nothing compassionate about racial discrimination masquerading as affirmative action, or economic innumeracy masquerading as “caring for the little guy,” or attacks on the foundations of civilization masquerading as “gay rights,” or judicial tyranny masquerading as “women’s rights.”

These leftist strategies are only effective because they are parasites on the real thing: liberty, justice, the rule of law, compassion, etc. There is nothing “compassionate” about instituting a single payer health care system in which health care is rationed in the form of a six month wait to get an MRI for that tumor that is growing inside of you. There is nothing “just” about causing serious damage to the world’s economy based upon fanciful weather reports, thereby killing and impoverishing millions more people than if you do nothing. There is nothing “fair” about morally equating the only liberal democracy in the whole of the Middle East with the genocidal barbarians who wish to destroy it.

The leftist counterfeiters rely on your very liberality to allow in the lies that are death to liberalism. This is how liberalism rots from within -- when, as Ken Wilber has written, it can no longer remember what it is or where it came from. These phony “integralists” attack me for my classical liberalism, as if they have the slightest interest in integrating my views with theirs. That’s just a lie. I challenge any of them to find an “integralist” who is as angry and hostile toward leftists as they are toward me. Let’s see the “integralist” who uses the same terms to attack Al Gore, or Jimmy Carter, or Hillary Clinton, or Noam Chomsky, as they do to attack me.

An astute reader pointed this out a couple of weeks ago. Truth is not a bottom-up, inductive, sum total of all the truths, half truths, lies, and stupid ideas of the world. Rather, truth is anterior to the minds that think it. As Bion wrote in his paradoxical way, the thinker is only required for the lie, in the sense that he must first know the truth in order to lie about it. Truth only requires that we conform ourselves to it. This is why most of the thinkers of the left are merely liars. And only a fool would mingle lies with truth and label it “integralism.”

Which is what I don't get. It seems to me that anyone who has spent even a small bit of time contemplating the cause and effect of differing political ideas and their application would have had the political epiphany that the vision and ideals of the American Founders would be the way to go to maximize human liberty and freedom and be a bulwark against the lash of tyranny.

>>“In fact, this is one of the surest ways to know that objective truth, beauty and morality exist, because uncorrupted human beings have a built in way to recognize sham versions of them. But the operative word is “uncorrupted,”<My guess is that this is the key to being able to fool people. We seem filter out and reflect back into the world that which we have an affinity for. I’ve spent a goodly amount of time of inner research to detect the true motives behind my actions. In that weeding out process I have come to find that the more pure (truly selfless) and in line with truth my reasons, the better able I am to detect a phoney when I come into contact with one.It seems to me that a lot of people today like to label themselves as being this or that to separate themselves from the crowd in a fallacious and unmerited attempt to rise in stature and esteem. When in my mind, a person with a modicum of integrity and humility would just call themselves a human being.

Very concise, Bob. And precise-- saying what I would try to say but not succeed.

In general, the process I sort of 'use' to weed out falsehood is knowing particular places where the holes usually are. So in this sense, a person will say the right things, but what they are saying is not right. Instead of giving an example, which I think in this case will be tired and unhelpful, I will instead just let it speak for itself.

When someone speaks truth, it is truth even if they do not believe it. But when the 'truth-speaker' begins to also add their feelings they always create holes revealing that they do not actually believe what they say.

The person who does NOT ever reveal any feeling or emotion through their writing-- not to say that their writing ought to be emotional, but I'm referring to what happens when one 'Fills the hole in the world with the riches within oneself'-- also risks being counterfeit.

Quite simply put- the process of 'putting it in your own words' speaks volumes about how one understands something. Quotes are illuminating to be sure, but the stiff style of textbooks may reflect truth but it does not speak it from its source.

Which I think is what we get (other than downright trolls) is the truth-teller who starts off speaking 'the logos' but quickly adds their own ideas (holes) to the thing. The other kind, far more rare, are those who speak true things but never personalize them. For them it is obvious (or seems to be) that the Truth is not coming from within them but from some other source, and they are reflecting it.

I wasn't going to give an example, but one popped up in my head. The guy who stopped in to say that he wanted Bob to be a 'full-on' guru and start a spiritual movement for reals... to which Bob replied that (more or less) Christianity has been around for 2000 years or so already.

To me I measure someone's wisdom in part by their reaction to leadership. My thought was this: I saw that many factions had grown from the faith, mostly because someone decided (at some point) that they had the authority to be their own faith. It helped, of course, that the original wasn't doing so well, to convince others that it must be so.

But the wise man, the real guru, does not revolutionize by throwing everything away and starting 'new' or replacing all old ideas with their new constructs, but by fulfilling the old. The true revolutionary is a man of the old order, who knows it, its strengths and its weaknesses, and how it really must be reformed.

And thus all great Spiritual teachers have one thing in common- they do not invite faction.

Simply requesting Bob to create a faction revealed more about that person than they might have been able to recognize. (Or maybe not.)

This simple principle of Truth is embodied in a saying of Christ himself: "For I have not come to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it."

Because the real guru does not seek power, he has no need for a faction.

Some will recall that even Luther himself did not want to create 'new church' at all, but to reform the Catholic church of his day. (He was a monk.) One thing led to another, though, as we all know.

This kind of vertical scrying is a quick process, and invisible (thus the word scrying) because it groups things in a seemingly illogical fashion to come to conclusions about whether something is counterfeit or not.

What sense does it make in regards to the intent of a counterfeiter to hold a bill up to the light to look for colored string in it?

>>Counterfeiters have always flourished in the spiritual and religious arenas<<

The "ape of God" can run a good and charming game, but, being what it is, always reveals its horns in some way.

In the traditional sense, a religious "heresy" was not a doctrine that was largely and outlandishly distinct from Church doctrine, but rather was something that almost conformed to it - save for one twist, one quirk that, on reflection, made all the difference.

In a sense, it's trickier, I think, to spot the horns in the modern era - illusion is so dominant that heresy is the norm. It requires a "simple" clarified mind to register Truth, but there is such a semiotic bombardment, such inducement to just fall asleep and be entertained . . . that's the great spiritual challenge, always has been, but particularly so these days, I think - stay awake, stay vigilant, lest we fail to spot the horns.

"Speaking on the first day of the conference, Mr. Annan said that he does not deny that the program may have resulted in kickbacks and surcharges paid to the Saddam Hussein regime, but stated that allegations of complicity or profiting by former UN officials were propaganda by a vast right-wing conspiracy and without basis in fact.

Annan welcomed the conference, hosted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to counter the media’s repeated assertion that the Oil-for-Food was the “biggest financial scandal in history.”

“If the Oil-for-Food scandal is a historical event, then is it not warranted to be looked into and researched?” Annan asked rhetorically. “That’s why we are here today.”

Of particular, isthe temptation of recognition, standing out, and leadership.

Being humble doesn't necessarily preclude the way some, or perhaps more or alot of people react or perceive one, but...and this is a big BUT...those that are truly humble do not seek fame, or even leadership.

The reason why is beause that's some heady stuff.

It's intoxicating, and it can become a major distraction.

Bob could easily surpass say, a Deepak Chokra, if he wanted to, in every way (fame, fortune, leadership).

Why doesn't he?

Because Bob is more concerned about the Absolute not the counterfeit loot.

As are most of us who return to read what is sometimes very painful, or very funny, yet truly enlightening.

More amens from the choir loft, as the final strains of 'Gloria in Excelcis Deo' fade off into the nave.

So, non-eschatologically speaking, if all the genuine articles were suddenly removed from the earth, leaving the parasitical counterfeits to their instant Eden, how long before they begin to cannibalize each other?

Dick C: Donny R will go down as the best Secy of Defense in history (but they're willing to let him leave before the job in Iraq is done)

W: the main originator of violence in Iraq is al Qaeda

Latest Pentagon report: the violence is worse than ever, the main cause of violence and murder are the Shiite brigades allied to al Sadr who is allied to the govt.

Oh and over one million Iraqis have fled their country (around 5% of the population) but the media is exaggerating the severity of the situation. Figure the number would be at least 2x if people had the financial means to leave.

You know, if a so called "integralist" truly possesed the Truth, they could come here, express said truth and that truth would be self evident to all. Instead we get a short drive-by pseudo intellectual name calling, put down session designed to try and elevate said pseudo intellectual above the actual truth teller, when in fact the pseudo wouldn't rate as a pimple on the actual truth tellers ass either in truth or the intelligence to express it.The proof is in the reading.

If we're talking truth, Mr. Godwin, let me offer some clarification: I have never been to or posted at this blog, nor have I ever interacted with you in any way before now.

In other words, don't be so quick to judge. By doing so you come off sounding like the raving leftist lunatics you so despise, moreso with your mob behind your back. I understand that you have been--or feel you have been--attacked by "leftists," but by immediately jumping on my case and lumping me in with Them, you are putting the cart before the horse. To say the least.

Or to put it another way, give me (or anyone) a chance before you throw me into the pit to be devoured by your goons (fans/disciples).

Now if you can at least entertain the possibility that I am not lying, can you see how misplaced your antagonism is? That is, what if I truly am interested in an integral view that embraces different, even seemingly opposing, truths? What if I am coming from a place of openness and what could be called the "imperative to self-transcend," and not from an entrenched viewpoint (as you and your cronies seem to be coming from)?

Where is the openness? The fluidity? The ability to hold and synthesize different views and ideologies by finding a deeper/higher view? And not simply dualize those out that we cannot metabolize as "lies"?

Mr. Godwin wrote: "Truth is not a bottom-up, inductive, sum total of all the truths, half truths, lies, and stupid ideas of the world."

I agree, at least in terms of relative truth (for Truth as the All includes all facets, aspects, and manifestations of reality, even lies)--that is often the tactic of what in Spiral Dynamics is called "green thinking." But when I refer to an integration of liberal and conservative, I am talking about taking the best of both while jettisoning (transcending) the lower, even pathological aspects (like the nihilism and extreme/"flatland" pluralism of academic postmodernism that you describe, for instance). Transcend and include, as Mr. Wilber would say.

What I see you repeatedly doing is attacking only the negative/lower aspects of liberal/left ideology, as if it is only the "bad news" of postmodernism.

So again, I am not interested in "integrating lies with truth," but in differentiating and integrating layers and depths of truth.

Need I quote Niels Bohr? "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth."

It seems that you (erroneously in my view) equate conservatism with Fact and liberalism with Falsehood, rather than (correctly) seeing them both as having a spectrum of readings and layers, facts and falsehoods.

But let us at least have a breath of openness about all this, yes? The Kosmos is complex and ultimately forever beyond any view or map to encapsulate.

I for one would cut Integralist some slack. Not because I think he's right, but because to me he sounds sincere. However that may be because I still have something of a tin ear in these matters.

I don't buy Integralist's stuff about integrating leftism with classical liberalism. They are mutually exclusive in profound ways. You cannot "integrate" respect for Judaism and Jews with Nazism. There are no "truths" or "positive side" to Nazism--it's just plain evil (and itself a grossly metasticized offshoot of leftism).

But I still think Integralist deserves more respect than the typical Kos kid, most of whom are literally proto-brownshirts.

In trying to select a single word to describe my feelings and reaction to leftists, I cannot do better than:

INDECENT

The Left is fundamentally indecent, in a very deep sense which goes far beyond what is implied by "indecent exposure". It is only tangentially related to sexuality or obscenity. Leftism is indecent in ways which are beyond my ability to adequately express.

The problem I have with this, is that when (for example) a liberal or leftist red diaper baby says, "Global Warming" -they are not really interested in discussion of science, they are interested in shoveling their agenda.

This is true with 99.999% of what they think they are discussing "rationally" -it invalidates their statements and thinking, as they cannot separate themselves and their codependency to their victim status from the "issue".

They seek to manipulate and rebel and stay unevolved and complain about the rest of us who make them uncomfortable.

Frankly, it is infantile and nauseating.

Add to this, that some of us here have a bit of ontogeny with respect to these thoughts and processes, and see them for the absolute nonsense and garbage that they truly are.

So, to conclude, no, I for one do not need to revisit liberal ideas because some of them "might be good" or have "good" in them. They are, in whole and in part, junk, for the above reasons.

This is because the "reason" is no reason other than some warped view of reality.

If you are truly a truth seeker, you let the evidence and the truth change you -you don't tell the truth how to exist because you think it should be so.

A somewhat tongue in cheek aside, there is also differential calculus, and not merely integral calculus. It seems to me integrational calculators miss the insights of differentiation. Or Tensor Calculus for that matter. ;)

The meaning of Bob's post is that you can't integrate truth with lies and expect to come up with truth.You yourself have judged him from one hours worth of reading yesterday and then entered here with your "informed" opinion.How about keeping your mouth shut ang giving it some time. If you are truly oriented towards truth, it will reveal itself in the fullness of that time.

I do see that Satan has found some truth in what you say.

>>"Multi-moonbat said... I back Integralist. The Leftist ideology contains certain truths that the liberal side does not possess, and these must be soberly faced and integrated..."<<

The leftist ideology has also killed tens of millions of people to try and further its cause.

You are reading and posting on a blog written by a raving lunatic with a mob of goons behind his back.

We can only wonder why. Bob wants to know the reason, but I don't know what to tell him. So could you give me a hint?

You ask: "Can you see how misplaced your antagonism is? That is, what if I truly am interested in an integral view that embraces different, even seemingly opposing, truths?"

--Well, tell us specifically what your vision is then, rather than wasting your time carping at the lunatic Bob's integral theory. Just don't do it here. Give us a link, so we can properly evaluate your theory.

"Where is the openness? The fluidity? The ability to hold and synthesize different views and ideologies by finding a deeper/higher view?"

Again, tell us where to find your ideas, and I promise to evaluate them and alert Bob if there is any truth in them. Repectfully, so far you have only spoken in shopworn platitudes that sound like new age boilerplate, but if there's more to it, I'd be happy to let Bob know. Again, give us a link or send us the material.

"The Kosmos is complex and ultimately forever beyond any view or map to encapsulate."

That's not quite true. There are certain metaphysical principles that cannot not be true, others that cannot possibly be true. Bob tries to avoid including the latter.

It seems that you (erroneously in my view) equate conservatism with Fact and liberalism with Falsehood, rather than (correctly) seeing them both as having a spectrum of readings and layers, facts and falsehoods.

I was going to comment here, but my comment ended up being rather long. Instead, I responded to you on my blog, if you're interested.

Re the cryptic designation -- don't hold me to this, but I'm guessing it has something to do with being a wise and saucy lover of language and truth (Sophialogo à Go-Go) who has a mysteriously attractive soul (anima-attraction).... Or perhaps some sort of vertical tribute to the divine feminine: sophia, anima, mysteress....

Then again, maybe Bob was just drinking. I'll try to find out what I can....

Jesus, the ultimate absolute Truth-Teacher, spent most of his recorded communications either quoting scripture or conveying Truth via parable. Whenever someone tried to twist His meaning to their own ends, He would simply point out the counterfeit for what it was and move on. Of course, He had a tad more clout than Bob (among other things).

G-BOB, Thank You so much for this topic of today. You say what many of many us think & observe.

G-BOB THANK YOU for the great quote from Bion: "...the thinker (crafty liar) is only required for the lie, in the sense that he must first know the truth in order to lie about it..."

The "way" of Evil is to know Truth/God but to REFUSE Him while still scamming to look like God/Truth. So they are "accepted."

They Fear Rejection. It injures their Pride/ego. They retaliate in anger & hatred but in clever counterfeit sophistry to get others to feel sympathy for them, so they again do not feel Rejection.

Rejection hurts them as Lefties / Narcissists love to scam others & need an Audience to counterfeit. Or, an audience who smacks-em-down when they lie & scam.

Secretly, they crave & love the attention they get from TruthTellers. A Narcissist/Liars "own kind" dont care to give attention to one another, they are busy preening over their own self in the mirror. The only "attention" Narcissists get is "negative" attention - from Us.

MOST of the Narcissists/Leftists/Liars I counsel have severe sexual-identity distortions and engage in chronic aberrant behaviors & addictions that grow in evil & cruelty. But they do it willingly, knowingly not becuz they think its right, but becuz they KNOW its Wrong. AND they want to go back to life as usual, hence most of them lead double-lives.

SOCIOPATHIC LIFESTYLE: The Double-minded are Double-willed which leads them to have Double-hearted relations with everything and everyone & leads them to live Double-lives that destroys others. The Sociopathic Lifestyle once again.

KEY: Narcissists ALL Fear Rejection and being Controlled by Others. They create an alternate Reality where they are god and magically their Fear "goes away." Being in control, they believe they have nothing to Fear anymore, and that there are no fears to face. hence there are no fears they cant deny. With no fears to face, they are free to embrace anything they choose without guilt, without shame, without conscience. Without fear.

Such is the mentality of a serial killer and Fascist dictator.

They seem to be EgoSadoMasochists who only feel "alive" when they are in the "danse macabre" between Truth & Lie, when they are "caught" between Counterfeit & Real, between Sanity & Insanity, between True Good and Evil, between God and Satan, between their Evil and our Truthfilled exposure of it.

REALITY IS: THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE TO EXPOSE THEIR OWN COUNTERFEITS & LIES & CHANGE SELF. And until they do that, they DENY, yet know/realize, the Truth of how utterly powerless they really are & how infantile they appear to us.

Hatred corrupts anyone; Hatred for God, Hatred for Truth, Contempt for Light and People of the Light who adhere to Light Principles by facing evil in themselves & thereby Transcending sin & evil with God.

Hatred for Evil can become twisted into Extremism & Radicalism. Look at the Imperialist Japanese & Kamikaze piolts of WW2 - they KNEW the Emperor was NOT God - but they used their knowledge to destroy other people ANYWAY.

The power and intimacy of Godly relationship is something Evil Liars cant Counterfeit. They will always Hate it since they dont have it yet covet it for their own..

Becuz of the intimate renewal of growing-ever-healthier spiritual relationship we have w/God and the Divine, they Fear Us / Truth / God. They already KNOW The Truth: We ARE Transcendent unto God. They are Not.

They Hate us not only for what we have and wont give up, but for their own resultant failure to overpower their own evil.

Their hate is the only "power" they have. But Insanity-unto-Evil is not real power, unless you're gonna be a dictator - and then what? So you kill lotta people and control a nation -- then what? Dictaros are limited & die too.

Just think of the Emperor and Anaken. "Embrace Your Hate..." to what end? Killing people as Dictators do? Big whoop. After that then what...?

Insanity & Narcissism are both great friends with Nihilism.

You wont kill God and you still have to face Him who is more powerful than you could ever be. And you wont trump satan either. (Poor conundrum of the insane.)

Against all LOGIC they choose The Counterfeit & Evil becuz they *THINK* it will give them Power - so they in effect admit they ARE powerless & want what they dont have. I wont pretend to understand THAT choice to remain Insane & seek LIMITED power in Evil.

For Evil IS limited. Reality is Dictators die, they dont live forever. Their Choice is to grab-power and use it to punish / abuse others out of Hatred / Contempt for them - as Anaken did, as Hitler did, as Stalin did, as serial killers do. "Others deserve it" dontchya know according to the Abuser.

Double-willedness is The Mark of an Evil person, one who simultaneously Loves the Idea of vaunted self in control as god, while knowing the Truth & Hating the Reality that their powerless self is not god.

Chronic "I'm A Victim" self-pitying prideful mentality along with a lack of and/or an embracing of overemotionalism leads one to abuse others. Hence they "hate" boundaries & limits and spew about "Freedom."

RIVER-C, Thanks for your thoughtful observations about Luther. You can see in his writings that he did not want to be the cause of nor instigate Revolution nor Rebellion, and it pained him greatly to see it developing despite his efforts to avoid it. The interplay between Luther and Professor Karlstadt, is quite interesting to observe, as Prof K DID want to be a public Guru and embraced self-as-god lies which led to thousands being wounded/killed. Yet it is not Karlstadt we revere & honor, but Luther.

Liars have no logic or reasonable Truth they ever offer for their hateful actions & contorted lies against Truthtellers. They just continue to spew like an overflowing cesspool/sewer. Orcses.

Then they "wonder" why We are against them and say they are braindead. ROFL LMAO.

Even when they know Repentance is the solution to their problems, they shun it - becuz it insults their Pride and they will not suffer IT being insulted.

For them, Its all about the little head posing as the Big Head, isnt it?

Princess says: "If You Think with the little head, then BE a little d***."

Intregralist: Read Proverbs before you tell someone to "not judge." Learn to use the RIGHT use of the word instead of your little piecemeal part of it. We ARE to learn to discern & JUDGE rightly - not in final judgment (death) but to be able to bring Truth to bear on Recalcitrant Fools.

FACE IT: Lefties FEAR being judged. Fear being seen. Fear being exposed. Fear being rejected and known for the scammer they are.

I give them no quarter, and feel no compassion or "whimpathy" for their positions. Nor for your assertions to "get to know them." Phooey!

Read the Bible, Follow it, then you will have your Answer as to Judgement-Ability. Judgement = Knowledge, Insight, Justice, Bold Assertiveness not aggressiveness, and appropriate Mercy & the ability to uphold consequences & boundaries instead of to pollute oneself on "freedom-ad-nauseum."

Until you understand Right Judgment ability and how it upholds JUSTICE, you will always pity and oversympathize w/Leftists, Liars, etc.

Know what side you really stand on & what poop you stand in before you fling-and-deny your own reality.

2. Only the Colors/Spectrum Position Minus the Black and White Boundaries matters;

BOTH ARE INSANITY & EVIL. Both Are Not Truth. BOTH ARE NOT WISDOM. Those who Adhere to them are Insane.

The First Position are Extremists, Wackos (Right or Left wing wackos it matters not), Dictators & Controller-Abusers.

The Second Position are Hippie-Humanists, Post-Modernists, Freedom Freaks, Jesus-Lovers who insist on Love Without Consequences, and Permissive Parents who produce evil Narcissistic tyrant children.

A Wise Capable Balanced Parent makes a better argument than you do. I pity if you have children.

From your writing its clear you Advocate the 2nd position, that of one who insists to take the Colors of Truth & Lies and mix them together in an Unholy amalgram.

You're just mentally-finger-painting and trying to make nice-nice so you dont get seen for who/what you are. I'm sure your position makes sense to you. But see it from Our Eyes, okay? Thats the challenge. Integrate our Positional observations with yours. We already made & corrected the mistakes you are making, hence we see it clearly. Thanks for trying, but please learn to know before you blow. A child speaks Truths at times as well, but they are still children for they are Not Adults and must work/grow into Adulthood/Wisdom. To do so successfully is Integration. To do so successfully with ALL the horizontal has to offer is to evolve into being a True Integralist.

You're not into Gourmet cooking are you? If you where you'd understand more about Balance / Integration than you like to think you do.

Our extremes comfort us becuz we overidentify w/them instead of willing to tolerate the amiguous interplay between the two and we fail to resolve the ambivalence which forces us back to the above two positions. Most immature people have a low tolerance for ambiguity. Most mature people have a high tolerance for it but it doesnt derail them. There is Stability to be found in Ambiguity!

Immature ones cling to their indefensible insane "truth" positions and never truly integrate due to fears.

To LIVE and BE in the Balance TAKES WORK COURAGE & COMMITMENT - cognitively, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually - most leftie-& overly liberal toddlers are just not that "into" Work in order to gain Wisdom.

Plaster this motto on your bathroom mirror. "Will Work for Wisdom. Will Lose self in order to find God."

And: "Will NOT integrate Truth with Lies."

We've moved past the stage of the Logic of the need for Integration / Integralism into the Spiritual Application of it. You dont need to come here to *THINK* to teach Bob of it, but to learn to sharpen your own skills in it - if you have any. You're totally WELCOME to Read read read and Gain some if you do not.

You dont strike me as a True Integralist. You still pick & choose and play w/the pieces & manipulate as if you know what you're doing which is the dead giveaway of a Leftie.

Clearly, here among your Betters, you dont past muster.

You fail to integrate positions One and Two above successfully together as Bob does.

So Puhhlease, stop scamming by posing as an "Integralist". We arent exactly toddlers here and we know how to smell your bull, even as you deny you reek of a poopy-diaper.

Watch some Cirque Du Soleil videos and learn more about Integralism from their performance, as they apply it adeptly & agilely, physically and mental-emotionally in order to convey Beautiful Spiritually Artistic integration.

Balanced Equipoise-in-active-application (Integration) is what Cirque performers are all about. Yes, they have to with understanding true roots of Integralism, and they LIVE it, breathe it, perform it.

They would laff to see a 2nd rate "Hippie-Hopper" try to tell THEM about Integration & Integralism. Not even Wise, thus it gives you away.

Keep growing. Then come back & interrelate with us more intelligently when you successfully INTEGRATE & PRACTICE the dynamic INTERrelationship between "Boundaries" and "Colors" and the necessity & sanity of Both, the "Integralism" you speak of.

I suggest you buy some Coloring Books or Paint by Number Kits as a Practical Application & Training Tool. Right there in front of your face is the Balanced Necessity & need to have B/W Boundaries (Lines) WITH Colors filling them in. Every Artist who knows this beginning Wisdom eventually produces truly beautiful ART as they practice Applied Integralism & their Art is a testament of their skills in it.

To BE Integralist is to touch & reflect, absorb & radiate, to BE spiritually Divine & yet fully human, to Transcend the sin-nature to BE Divine nature - not mix it all up w/God and call that "integration."

To BE Divine is not merely reflecting the Divine. The active living application of Eternal Finished Work Perspective integrated with the Finitude & limits of here-and-now Temporal Reality...THAT is Integralism of the highest order. I.e., Colors and Boundaries in Dynamic Harmony & Wisdom of Being - Not to make an unholy evil mix o mudpeople from squishing good and evil together.

Transcendence is the key concept & application it seems clear you are lacking - this is why you instead focus on focusing on what the poor Libbies & Lefties "have as good "points." Navel-gazing at the Pieces dont make an Integral Whole - it makes an Ahole.

Its the proverbial "Hole in the Sidewalk" that you keep falling into instead of avoiding. The deal is to rise above it, i.e., Transcend outta the Hole and over it so you dont keep fallin in.

Meditate on THAT as you're coloring w/your Crayons n Paints and you will Integrate your first observation of Real Wisdom so you can graduate from toddler skool to 1st Grade of Sanity School. You are welcome here to come and read & learn, but toddlers dont make good truth teachers, even if they fancy themselves one. Even kids fantasize to be a Teacher - but Reality is Not Fantasy, and the Divine Transcends both.

"You wont kill God and you still have to face Him who is more powerful than you could ever be. And you wont trump satan either. (Poor conundrum of the insane.)"

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevaling. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; Lord Sabbaoth, his name, from age to age the same, and he must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth; the Spirit and the gifts are ours, thru him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill; God's truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.

It does not need to be integrated w/Lies, but rather refutes them with its purity.

Lies often need to be pared away from covering up Truth so It is revealed in full Beauty.

Truth IS Divine Transcendence. To demand to mix poop/lies and Truth/Beauty together - THAT is Evil and done by haters wanting to be god.

Truth accepts Purity, and/but rejects bull. If you are sincere to transcend self, then one must root out and reject ALL Lies in your self - ones you've made, are making, will make - every single one you harbor seeks to coverup & corrupt Truth/God.

Hypocrisy is not beautiful its evil & its a professional liar. Truth stands against it. There is no mixing. That is Insanity & Not Reality much less Divine.

Serve God/Truth instead of self/lies. Then you will be on the path to knowing Transcendence instead of thinking to imitate it.

Stop trying to palm-off with verbal prestidigitation your Evil lies as "enlightened Truth." IF you are sincere at all you will change and exchange the Lies for Truth.

In yesterdays comments MikeZ said... "If I control how you speak, I control how you think."

This reminds me of something I heard almost 20 years ago, and isn't (that) far from todays topic and which gave some focus and urgency to my seeking after self-education (PsychoPrincess - this is also the best answer to the question you asked me last week).

I was at a sales seminar, and the speaker said something that just stunned me "If I know sales techniques and you don't, I can probably sell you something" Everybody nodded, yeah, sure, makes sense. He went on "If I know more than you do about a product, I can control you" People were a bit more hesitant about that, but with some explanation he convinced us that by knowing all the answers, and more importantly the questions people would have, and would have on hearing different facts and features, the skillful salesmen could guide someone towards the goal he selected. Then he let loose with "But if I know more than you know - -about yourself - I can enslave you!" It was meant, delivered and received as a ha-ha shocker punchline and all laughed and the seminar moved on.

I on the other hand sat there thunderstruck over the possibilities, implications, and what I felt were real concerns lurking in that statement. His toss off remark, was a major pivot in my life.

For there is no justice without truth; and no truth where there are lies.

Fairness then is not really justice, but a base emotion.

A temporary patching over the trouble of reality to soothe the beast within.

Or to justify ones own longings for love and acceptance.

If everyone's truth is good enough, then mine is too.

Even if I am a fool.

Jokers are wild.

---

Bob, Regarding Dobson and those studies... Is it not true that if the counterfeiter produced a genuine article he would not know it from the false?

It seems those 'studies' merely reinforced what was common sense, which is not overall a bad thing. But the counterfeiters had a different purpose in mind for their studies, I suppose?

I guess the bill-copier doesn't care if his money is a work of art. He just wants to rip someone off.

Any idea as to why such nonsense might produce something with sense? Is it a case of 'The blind squirrel-catcher gets one once in awhile'? Or is there, in your estimation, truly no merit to those studies? (And if I may ask, why?)

I think I might know the answer (sometimes I hear the answers to my questions while I type them...) but I'd be interested to know what you think.

Snidely tarthumbed nods, shakes it off, nods, winds up, he pitches, it's a fast ball; Gagdad swings - "The whole point of leftism is that it is a counterfeit ideology par excellence. Any truth or beauty it possesses is merely a reflection of the real thing, nothing intrinsic to it, for it must always pretend that it is promulgating ideals that it specifically rejects"" He hits it! It's going, going, It's Gone! He hit it out of the park! Another homerun for the Rickenbacher leaper!

Ben, I think the apes of God more often than not reveal themselves through a kind of shimmering "hyper-reality", which is the mark of the illusory. In other words, the counterfeit is often more "beautiful" in surface appearance than the original. (the "feit"?

Celebrity, for example. Celebrity is the ape of renown, and in a way, it's the ape of the Eternal, promising as it does an ersatz immortality. Of course, celebrities are counterfeit people, but they appear to many as "more real", more vital.

I think glamour is the medium by which the counterfeit manifests - Marxism and all its contemporary offspring certainly manifest a seductive glamour of sorts. Glamour has always existed; it was there in the Garden, of course, but today it's abetted by high-tech. That's why wakefulness is so critical now.

I think one reason why the spiritual realm is so vulnerable to the counterfeit is because the essence of glamour - or what some might term "astral illusion" - is actually something "otherworldly", though hardly spiritual. Undertaking the spiritual journey is not exactly an un-perilous enterprise - like it says somewhere, even the Elect get deceived. I always pray for spiritual clarity.

"You've Made me Love You, I didnt wanna do it...I didnt wanna - " but find that I do. :D

You Are The Best, Brother! Since I'm the newest member of your Fan Club I surfed over to your site on dEViant to learn more about you - and I liked what I saw very much. Am so PROUD of You, and Papa Luther would be as well!

My Thanks is inadequate, but I Thank You from My Heart & Spirit, nonetheless. A well-timed Sword-stroke (in this case Hymn-stroke) at once pierces the Soul, invites one immediately into the Divine, while at the same time utterly refuting and rejecting the Darkness that seeks to devour Beauty.

Wisdom with a Sword (er keyboard?) is knowing the difference between Best and Beast...A Knight hesitates not to throw the "a" in Beast away (short for yunno-where), so the Best remains, and shines with the Divine from within.

Just to throw my 2 cents at Integralist (I'd like a receipt, please) -

Yeah, I guess the Left does purvey some truth. As William James once said, every religion has some truth to it. Even the Nation of Islam has some truth to it. Trouble is, as with the Left, it invariably inverts that truth, ie., counterfeits it. The issue of eco-conservation, which certainly involves a "truth" - the Left has generally inverted it, made it grotesque.

It's not the issues themselves - it's the inverted spin the Left always manages to inflict on them.

integralist said... "I have never been to or posted at this blog, nor have I ever interacted with you in any way before now....In other words, don't be so quick to judge... you come off sounding like the raving leftist lunatics you so despise, moreso with your mob behind your back."

As I said in yesterday's comments - it shows.

Our reaction to you is similar to if someone stepped into an ongoing calculus class and declared "I have discovered that symbols can be used for quantities, so that we can create formulas such as '3x/y = 4c', and furthermore I have discovered that the world in not flat! It is in fact a perfect sphere!", and stood there proudly waiting for applause, then annoyance at a lack of response.

The class might gently explain to the person that "Yes the whole symbol for quantity is useful... but we covered that way back in Algebra I, and by the way, your calculations are a bit off, while the world is round, it is not a perfect sphere. Best if you went back & studied up on Albebra I & II, then Trigonometry & Calculus, then we'll have something to talk about."

But after the gazillionth "Truth Bearer" barges in with the same stale & faulty notions, pardon us for getting a bit annoyed. Go back read... even just a few months of Posts AND comments, and then you might have something useful to contribute.

Gagdad, Will, Joan, Stu, Alan, Myself... at some point or another have all (well maybe not Will...) said something a bit off, and has been questioned on it & expanded or corrected. There have been many new Cosmonauts that have strayed into, or asked questions such as you posted, but the manner & form was quite different, and they were not met with annoyance, but helpfulness - as RC noted above, the manner of the writing reveals much, and determines how it will be received.

intty said... "I spell it with a K after Ken Wilber's usage, obviously (and Yasuhiko Genko Kimura) to differentiate it from the purely physical Cosmos."

Yes, changing the spelling an established and well understood word for the purpose of...(sorry, I don't get the significance) seems to go well with adopting an arbitrary color coding system to disintegrate established history & philosophy from that of the new colorful clique.

Very good point. A casual perusal of comments will reveal that Will often gently corrects some of Bob's more florid rhetorical excesses, but that no one has yet found reason to correct Will. So if trolls want to go after someone for being a Mr. Gnosis All, they should leave Bob out of it and get on Will's case. Fergus will protect him.

Having the once little kid you painstakingly taught the keys to multiplication tables, word problems & algebra to... trying to explain to you what he finds interesting about a Physics formula that is so far above your head you can't even read the question.

DuPree said "a wise and saucy lover of language and truth (Sophialogo à Go-Go) who has a mysteriously attractive soul (anima-attraction).... Or perhaps some sort of vertical tribute to the divine feminine: sophia, anima, mysteress...." owhm...pant! pant!

Ximeze said.."...can not, as of yet, have grown accustomed to her Robes. Bet they pinch & bunch-up when she tries to sit down, in a most Unseemly Manner."

Psquared said... "Double-willedness is The Mark of an Evil person, one who simultaneously Loves the Idea of vaunted self in control as god, while knowing the Truth & Hating the Reality that their powerless self is not god. "

River Cocytus said..."... Is it not true that if the counterfeiter produced a genuine article he would not know it from the false? "

True. It's often forgotten that Truth doesn't exist in little separate packets tossed about the universe, it is contextual. Truth is one fully integrated package, and trotting out a few words or artifacts as 'truthful answers', isolated from the questions they are to integrate with, is no Truth at all.

I'm reminded of quizing my 7yr old on her Arithmatic yesterday "uh... 10?"

I continued to look at her and she then said "11?", even though the question was what is '30 - 20', she didn't understand the Truth of the answer '10', what the full equation was, and so "10?" was not truly the correct answer.

(cue the sandalwood & brass gong) "The answer is not fully True, until it is one with the Question."

Will said... "every religion has some truth to it. Even the Nation of Islam has some truth to it. Trouble is, as with the Left, it invariably inverts that truth, ie., counterfeits it. "

Yep, and sets it down and aside from the central Truths it purports to praise, while shamming integration with stylish Glamour's.... Ooh, a pang of guilt, I need to work on the post#3 on my site relating to Words and Glamour...

Alright, alright, I'll paint the bulls eye on myself - trolls and those of all persuasions, lock and load:

The fact is, I worship the fearful god Yottle who, for the past 12 years, has taken the form of a deflated soccer ball in my hall closet. I am, in fact, the chief messiah of Yottle-ism, that is, until Yottle re-inflates himself and assumes his rightful place in the sky, directing traffic, monitoring car chases, and generally making all substances cohere properly.

So far, I have but one disciple, a neighborhood man of, shall we say, "lesser means". Granted, I pay him a monthly stipend to be so, nonetheless his faith touches my heart.

Yottle's wrath is like oatmeal boiling over the sides of a pot.

I have spent days, yea, years asking Yottle for a sign, just a word or two. So far, nothing, but there's always tomorrow.

Yottle is small, but through some sleight of leather and mirrors, appears to be infinite in size.

WILL!! OMG! I just lost 3lbs between scrolling mightily (and re-reading) y'alls posts and laffing my Abs off tonight!! :)

Yottle - awwww, he's Priceless!

"Heresy is the norm." Ugh. Almost lost my dinner. Only in Satantic Theology do such lies silkily replace Truth & are accepted and embraced with nary a shiver, only a whisper to mark the transition of the substitution.

Bible says we are to be a peculiar people...well at least WE here at OC are...(Some of Yooz are a bit more Pekewlyar than others, no doubt! Muahahahaha!)

WILL, appreciated your thoughts on Heresy being de rigeur here. Heresies infect Psychology, Philosophy, Theology, Sociology, Ontology - all of the Horizontal Axis is being infected and replaced with cockroaches. THAT is what Systemic Evil is all about - the infection of Good and domination / transformation of Good into Evil. It will not leave Good alone to be Good and always seeks to pervert it.

The Evolution of Evil thru the centuries marches on in Lockstep with the Antichrist's Agenda and against people of Truth.

Oh, thats right -- Evil is real but the AntiChrist is a Joke(r).

Oh Oh wait - There I Go Aagain - I FORGOT (Smaks Head) -- the Leftie Commandments/Mantras/Chant-Rants: "There Is No evil, only Love. You make your life as you wish it to be, so you can be god if you wish. Dont judge becuz you KNOW theres no such thing as sin or crime anymore."

Silly Princess, You! Stop being a paranoid princess and come, come now, Be Reasonable...Unplug your Spirit-Antispy Poop-Detector and Pack-0-Lies-Sniffers and just embrace Peace Peace Peace. ALL you need is Love, you dont needa brain"...silly Princess.

LookIt: Eve might have fallen for Your baloney & bs -- but Not this Princess!! You got the Wrong Girl. Dont you dare call me BatGirl!

Now Think: Gee, Am I gonna stand there and *talk* to It?? Like Eve did? Or smak it down with a boot to the mouth and then RUN to Father?

When it opens it mouth and reveals what it is/isnt, Smak first; ask questions later when Dad gets on the scene. I learned from my ancestors mistakes becuz I learned from the King I served, and He didnt once tell me to take time to Dialogue with Demons-with-Diarrhea-lips.

Followers of the Snake, you know who you are, you too can turn from Insanity to have a Sound Mind, but turning away means turning away - not polluting & poisoning Truth by mixing it with up with your poisonous Lies.

The Twist / Thorn / sumfink outta place is always the clue "a lil stickler-point of Truth" they usually fail to see or cover up - and Truth can also "stand out in Absentia" if they have covered everything up well.

So yes, WILL, Be Ye Vigilant just as CSIers are Vigilant to find the real evidence. The Vigilant have their Autopilot "On" so when others are asleep or when theres "INcoming!" their Sh**O-Meters, Leftie-Detect-O-Loaders, PortHOLE Scanners, Packet-O-Lies w/Infrared Dradas Detectors GO OFF -- the Alarms blare, Bells Toll, the Sentinels are on patrol - not outta fear but more like "Oh. Another one. ZapIt" like when the BugZapper fries another no-see-um.

Its Criminal activity of criminal minds. Only we dont have thought police & PsychCops; but the prison of Flatland still lives and confines others like a playpen until one leaves it.

An imaginary conversation From Flatland:

"How did You get to be a Sphere?" Asks Mr. Square quizzically if not a bit perplexed. Then, "Thats not normal to be a Sphere-ball. No one else here if Flatland is round like you."

The Sphere, gazing down upon 2-D Mr. Square, patiently explains:"When I was a Baby, I was a Dothead. When I was a Toddler, I became a Line. When I was a Teen, I became Two lines (Split). When I was an Adult, I became rejoined at My Center. As a Mature Adult I became a Cross. In Middle Age I became a Circle-that-Spins. Now that I'm an Elder, I've become a Sphere."

Anyone guess what it means?

HINT: What do you get when you Bend a Cross of 4 Spokes backward upon its Self (as a Submitted Cross, not Inverted nor Torus)?

I will buy an autographed copy of G-Bobs book and send it as a Present to whomever comes closest to the right answer. No one will play with me at church and even hazard an Answer, so I turn to my CyberFrienz here and hope you will find it entertaining if not enlightening.

~ PsychoPrincess ~

There are no Paradoxes - no spoons.("The Truth is, "There IS No Spoon").- said Wise Kid to Neo.

There is only Balance & Imbalance. ("When you are ready, You will See, it is You That Bends, and not the Spoon at all.") - Wise Kid to Neo.

Princess is going to bed now. You have a Good Night and keep Anon in line for us while we sleep, ok?

He needs to read Ed Murphys Handbook on Spiritual Warfare to answer his own questions on "demonology" as he calls it. Yes, its always PC when one is finally forced into talking about God and/or evil (grimace) that one mustNT talk about "ye uncouthe medieval demonology" ... argggh... only in the Lefties mind can such a dissociative split occur while their Denial still appears "business as usual to them."

Hey Hoarhey: Ifn you're up all night, take a crack at the Cross Question I put at the end of my post - just for me, pwease? I'll share my Lego Soldiers & castles & catapults with you (*grin*) ...oh ALRIGHT, AND my LOTR Figurines...AND my Cyber-Transformers, too! :D

USSBen: Eh, couldnt sleep. LOL! Tomahawk Missiles & Targetting Gear - Ahhh you spoke the Magic words!! I'm good to go with it - you're speaking my lingo! (a dim echo of "Greetings Professor Falcon, would You like to play a Game?" whispers in my mind.)

I'm sure they must have Online real time "CyberBattleships" or sumfink like that now. C'mon Fess Up - in between your Official duties you sneak in here to read up AND you play Wargames in Cyberland dontcha? ;)

A Friend of mine is dying to come here & talk with you & the Peeps. I told him about you and asked him to pray for you. Hes a big naval history buff and loves the Naval Yards in Michigan. You'd have fun talking with him & I'd have fun collectin dah money on the two of you as you play various re-enactments of WW2 seabattles, etc. I would love to see that!

My dad's a veteran of Korean War and he & mom went to Pearl Harbor one year. You could SEE the actual change in him after being there; "Honor" was so palpable it radiated from his being when he came back. I swear he stood taller, looked calmer, more "stable" somehow. It made him seem 10' tall & psychospiritually healthy. I'll never forget how he looked.

Its good to remember my dad loved the military so. It made him a better man. I dont speak to my parents now. This year will be the first Christmas I'm actually doing really well with that subject. I chose to separate from them 7 yrs ago due to their on-going Evil and for the usual reasons anyone in their right mind must make such a painful choice, when people are chronically abusive & refuse to repent of their evil.

They are my adoptive parental units anyway. I've never met or known my biological ones. Peeps here are much more Family to me than my own have ever been. There are all kinds of wildernesses, here and where you are too, USSBen. Its so unbelievable to come here & meet & share like this it makes the wilderness seem smaller and not so vast...so....(choking back a PuffsPlus moment) I thank G-BOB for the blogging/milking habit & am blessed for the laffter, education, expansion of mind & spiritual chow we get here.

Its like family fun dinnertime at Bob's, eh? Here Reminds me of families that bond together & go hunting together over Thanksgiving week. The hunters I've hunted with say, "Yup. The family that hunts together...stays together...ifn they dont shoot each other by accident first."

I'd be honored to cross Battleships with you, Sir Ben! But um you'd still win I'm quite sure! I'd play on your Team anytime, I know how to shoot and I dont get seasick. Hint hint: just tell me when its time to track n target that I'm shooting at Osama or Fidel or other nutcase PsychoTyrant, and I'll make You Proud!

My friends and I STILL talk about Christian Sniper Dude from Saving Private Ryan all these years later! He really jazzed us. Sometimes we even talk like that on the phone to encourage one another too, LOL!

I'll invite my friend to join soon so you Boyz can chat about "boats" n guns n missiles oh my. My Brother in law was a Navy officer & I used to tease him he was a BoatBoyee & played with boats (instead of ships). Then one day we went to visit his Ship in dock and WOW! Girl Scouts honor, I never called it a "boat" again but I still did occasionally call him BoatBoyee or "Gilligan!!"

Just the difference that my castle is on the ground and your castle floats on the Sea...Gee, how Y'all get Dialup out there? (LOL!!)

No mud wrasslin'! Sorry guys. I'm sure Ximeze's kung fu is awesome, but my .38 special is really a lot less fussy and showy.

As to the matter of "robes" I must point out that the Cosmic Raccoons wear regular clothes, (for yours truly it's a cute little ensemble: a Versace soft knit red shell top with a v-neck and 3/4 sleeves worn over a straight black skirt, and peep-toe pumps from Manolo and a Coach clutch for all my important, mysterious Mysteress things, including the .38 Special), but for their meetings don the mighty coon-tail hat a-la-Davey Crockett. It looks great with my outfit!

INTEGRAL: You do realize you CANT jettison the "evil elements" OUT of post-modernism, dont you??

Thats like saying we can change evil and make it Not-Evil. Theres no Pasteurization of Evil.

You mean you've come up with a vaccine against spiritual evil?

God has, and its called Christ, specifically an organic relationship with Christ-in-us called the HolySpirit. We subscribe to Gods Truth, we dont tell God to "make another one." We dont make one and give it to Him either, He doesnt need our help that way or competition from us trying to be little gods.

Why cant we just let Him be Him and We be Sheep? It WORKS that way, no Frankensteining of things is needed. Thats why we try to keep it simple instead of complex.

Last time I looked, Psycho and Sane are mutually exclusive in Gods Kingdom and also Here.

You need to go back to skool and learn about Chemistry, transmutations, particle 1/2-life, magnetic fields, etc. And learn to APPLY the knowledge of the Scientific into your views - try that on first for successful integration. Then Study the Laws of Physics and learn how Matter and Antimatter interrelate & dont relate.

Apparently you slept thru Physical Science class and failed to integrate the laws of science into ur views.

Fusion or Fission...anyone...anyone..?

You do act as if mixing two elements like Conservatism & Liberalism or even Leftism & Liberalism Can GO TOGETHER...that just so "wrong!" Many -ISMS are like magnets that are polar opposites to each other & shouldnt / couldnt be forced to stick together as they REPEL one another. Its not possible nor wise in many cases to fiddle w/their underlying structures, only to respect working with the element they already are.

You're like a mad scientist who believes you can take the bones & organs out of an animal and FrankenFashion a human hybrid.

Some hybrids come out retarded!!

So you fancy yourself a LibbieConservoAlchemist and you call yourself an "integralist?" We arent talking narrowly here only of conservos & libbie politics. We're talking of the pre-eminence of Truth and how THAT comes to bear upon ALL aspects of the Horizontal paradigms of the Cross under the Vertical & how they interrelate - which speaks moreso of Spirituality, Metaphysics, Ontology & Transcendence. And Heresies that have resulted just from people thinking as you have that things can be Frankenfashioned together which have no business being put together, kinda like bad marriages.

The political arena you microfocus on is but one of those aspects. The View from the Cross/Truth is broader.

You seem to miss the whole point about why the Spiritual aspect is extremely important. Instead you focus on what to us seems like inane ideas & wrong questions such as "Why CANT we jettison the evil elements of post-modernism?" when most here know the obvious answer to it like the back of their hand. Its elementary to us. Plus most of us here have or are gaining practical application & experiences of the Truths we talk about - we arent here to just dither Gnostically about ideas & trade Alchemists Recipes.

If you'd like to learn what we know and how we've come to know it, please, keep reading the posts and chewing the cud, as we say. Truths take time to uncover / sink-in to expose Lies already in place in your thinking, so its kinda like Meditation to send time here.

I'm just saying you need to really learn to be more scholarly, thorough, well structured & APPLIED in your "knowledge" - then you wont make such elementary mistakes in logic when you speak "truth." And you will learn you are not the Alchemist you fancy yourself to be, and thats okay, that its not the Answer you actually seek, just a counterfeit of the real answer.

Practical experience teaches an applied Wisdom that Gnosticism cant externalize nor experience & you do strike me as partly Gnostic but also as poisoned by the pieces of funny 'shrooms you've mixed into your cauldron o thoughts over the years.

I'm glad you've landed here to get help for such sloppy, delusional thinking. You kid yourself into believing You CAN pick and choose as if at the Buffett O ISM and manually create-your-own-new-truthplate, and you call that Integralism?

We call it "Voodoo Gooroo" Syndrome: The belief in ones own self as Guru having Voodoo to change but who wont even change their own diapers from Narcissism's poodoo.

Some evils in life simply cant be integrated into something else. To do so causes annhilation - as one poster said "you cant integrate gravity & non-gravity."

"Frankensteining" your Theologies, Philosophies, Psychologies, Politics is a no-no and is NOT Integralism. I know you probably dont understand "why" it just isnt. When you're older you'll understand, Beave.

You could be focusing on uncovering Truths the way an Archaeologist does, knowing the Tombs of Truth are 5 layers beneath, brushing away the layers of dirt that buries them until you finally reach bedrock.

Its only upon Bedrock that Truth stands. All else is shiftysand and Truth never stands on it, but people and their =Isms do.

Some Art is Ugh-lee Art becuz the "artist" decided to put two or more artforms together and make a heinous mess and call it Art. Doesnt mean its actually Art, though. Especially when it deconstructs instead of liberates the classic elements and principles of Great Art.

But when elements are respected and principles of good Design are followed, forms can be worked with and put together in new ways that liberate the Truths within them where hey complement one another (I think this is what you were trying to say about conservo & libbie politics overall) then perhaps Art is being produced if one has agreed to respect Principles of good design - otherwise we'd have architects convincing us to live in ... I dunno ... Grinchville? (Trying to think of some mishapen bldgs posing as 'art.') We'd certainly lose the perspective-method very fast; our cities would be haphazard, roads would not need to be designed well, in short it would be a mess becuz all things would become relative and people would design as they choose instead of by an agreed upon set of Truthful Principles.

Truth Principles exist whether we choose to honor them or not. Hence, so do Evil Principles.

Generally, we call this knowledge of the study of God, Evil, Truth & Principles the Study of THEOLOGY.

CLUE: -ISM indicates an illness (usually tho not in all cases) as in: Humanist thought is one thing and is necessary, within boundaries; HumanISM is quite another thing and is the polluted evil form of proper Humanist thought. Humanist thinkers for a time were needed as far as the evolution of man is concerned, thats why we went thru the Rennaissance period - the zenith of Humanist thought & ideas as they impacted & shaped Renn-mans world.

But to not move forward in growth, when you continue to embrace something beyond its appropriate application is to overcontrol & abuse it into an -ISM. Such as AlcoholISM. NarcissISM. LiberalISM. These are the counterfeits of the originals and grow to be their own Beasties. Most -ISMS dont "become good" - they usually all deteriorate into greater forms of evil, not become greater forms of Truth.

So its important to know this stuff before you go pickn n choosn which ingredients and in what order you mix your MetaphySickal Gunpowder. Even Minutemen knew that simple Truth and respected it.

At least you can say I tried to "answer" your questions patiently and tried to redirect you to practical knowledge you can grasp and apply & relearn. Am not trying to insult your intelligence, just going by what you evidenced.

Looks like I got to the party late! Glad to see Bob or is it really Petey have decided to include some femme spirit into the order!! Bout time...Congrats, Joan, and yes you are a sophia go-go! But when it comes to wrasslin, well, that's kind of my territory! Just ask Will?! I have learned to tolerate much nonsense with the trolls but sometimes they really just need a swift sharp arm to the throat...and the takedown begins. But why are all the trolls the same? It's so passe...

Some kept records. An early comet was described in detail over several months by ancient Chinese astronomers. All we have of Roman accounts is "there was a hairy star".

And when he writes "they", he refers to the minute class of what would today be called "scientists", that is, observers and recorders. I doubt the common man ever wondered about such things. Not then, not now. Some things don't change.

I think the term you're looking for ("I’ll bet the French have a word for it...") is "je ne sais quoi".

Again, wow: what a hostile environment for any sort of opposing views. This place is too partisan and biased to really get any interesting conversation going, as far as I can tell, not to mention integral understanding.

Let me re-iterate: it is not the specific criticisms of "leftism" that I am disagreeing with--at least not all of them--but the extreme and total castigation of it, the conflation of all "leftist" views under one purview, like some kind of diabolical ideology, and thus the inability to include any truthful aspects of it within an integral embrace. Again, I am NOT trying to include truths and lies, but different degrees and layers/levels of relative truths.

I may have sounded rather harsh with words such as "goons" and "mob" and "raving lunatic," and if I hurt any feelings I apologize. But what can I say? That is what I observe--you want truth and honesty, right?--and yes, from just a relatively brief glance (although Wayne Dyer seems to hold similar, if more extreme, views, from what I just read).

I am not saying that is all that is going on here, or that Mr. Godwin--and his followers here--have nothing interesting or intelligent to say; not at all. What I am saying is that this extreme polarization and castigation of leftism produces a perhaps crippling blindspot that taints this blog. It sounds like a lot of you have added everything that you dislike/don't understand/fear and given it a name: Leftism. And in the process, lost any capacity to differentiate subtleties. That is why I said "black and white," which equates more with the fundamentalism of the Blue vmeme of Spiral Dynamics than the integral Yellow and Turquoise vmemes (or perhaps more accurately a combination of Yellow and Blue--but little or no Turquoise, the holistic, embracing, fuller expression of integralism).

All that said, we all have blindspots and none of us can make claim to perfect, absolute Truth--for Absolute Truth is something that cannot be codified, contained, or defined. It is that which allows everything to arise, including our opposing views...

Will said: yeah, I guess the Left does purvey some truth. As William James once said, every religion has some truth to it. Even the Nation of Islam has some truth to it. Trouble is, as with the Left, it invariably inverts that truth, ie., counterfeits it. The issue of eco-conservation, which certainly involves a "truth" - the Left has generally inverted it, made it grotesque.

It's not the issues themselves - it's the inverted spin the Left always manages to inflict on them.

Can't integrate that sort of spin.

Yes, I agree (although perhaps not with your specific example of eco-conservation, at least to the same degree).

This points out how we have to be more precise. There are many facets, sub-groups, and differing ideologies within what you are calling The Left. A lot of the mistake being made here, as I see it, is more along the lines of not differentiating this.

I mean, we call all make a charicature of something and easily demolish it. The so-called Left likes to charicature the Religious Right--and to a large degree rightly so. But that doesn't mean that all Christians are fundamentalists.

integralist said..."What I am saying is that this extreme polarization and castigation of leftism produces a perhaps crippling blindspot..."

Listen, you put forth an opinion/observation the other day that many here disagreed with ("gasp! Horror!"), and who then identified what they found distasteful in it. You are apparently not personally strong enough to engage in a back and forth over your ideas, but instead jumped from directly to the typical leftist-I'm-an-Offended-Victim! mode of 'response', that is really too tiresom to tolerate.

If you want to argue your position, then argue it, but don't expect others who not only disagree with the surface of your position, but have thoroughly investigated the philosophical reasons for that dissagreement (See the One Cosmos archive, or even the archive at my site - it's not as long) and see in it not just the typical leftist knee-jerk reaction (again not name calling, but a description of a thoroughly understood manifestation - again, see archives), but see the real harm and dangers that those views ultimately pose - don't expect them, us, me, to pretend to your holier than thou faux intellectual detachment.

"That is why I said "black and white," which equates more with the fundamentalism of the Blue vmeme of Spiral Dynamics than the integral Yellow and Turquoise vmemes (or perhaps more accurately a combination of Yellow and Blue--but little or no Turquoise, the holistic, embracing, fuller expression of integralism)."

gesundheit. Now you drop your color coded gobbledygook as if it had actual content and meaning outside your integral clique...

Ok, here's a suggestion, take your "I'm offended"-seeking blue turquoise integralism and stick it where the 'fuller expression' don't shine.

Integralist: I believe that what we should be doing here is to understand why we disagree, rather than hammer out an agreement. 'Hammering out' usually does violence to the ideas.

You're assuming that Bob holds that there is nothing of any value in the Left. (That is certainly a tempting proposition.) One question might be, is there any overlap between the Left and the Right? (I hesitate to use those simplistic labels, because those labels carry different meanings to different people. Not only Left and Right, but Liberal and Conservative. L and C seem to lie on different axes than L and R - maybe it's because they describe different things.

Can we even come up with a set of beliefs that encapsulates "left", or "right"?

I should start by asking everyone to define their terms - but even that leads down a winding path. Dr Bob makes an important point in noting the difference between the Founding Fathers' Classical Liberalism and the strange beast it's been transformed into today - very possibly by its mating, along the years, with Marx, Gramsci, Deleuze, and a host of others.

For openers, what do you understand by "the left"? (I think we know what Bob understands). And where does it fit in among "liberal/conservative", "Democrat/Republican" (to cite a few)?

For everyone, here's a "Koan for the Day": What is Truth? It may be a case of "the Truth you meet along the road is not the Truth".

Clearly, there are transient truths - we see tham all the time: "eating X causes disorder Y" - no, wait, that was two years ago; now you can eat all the X you want. "Nothing travels faster than light" - no, wait, that was last year, today we know of quantum entanglement. There seem to be very few Absolute Truths (by "absolute", I mean, something that is true here and everywhere in the universe, true now, then, and always. I'm not sure I want to go any further than "God is".

mikez said..."Clearly, there are transient truths - we see tham all the time: "eating X causes disorder Y" - no, wait, that was two years ago; now you can eat all the X you want. "Nothing travels faster than light" - no, wait, that was last year, today we know of quantum entanglement. "

Them thar's dangerous waters you're heading down Mikez.

No, there are not any "transient truths". Period.

THere ARE situations and contexts where due to a changing set of circumstances, we find that what we expected to be true is no longer so, but that is only because the context changed - not the Truth.

A quick toss-off (while I'm debugging c# code aka "the context this applies to may vary greatly") definition of the Truth, at least to the horizontal application, might be: "A factual identification of things as they are, within a given context" (with the implied "in Reality").

It is not true to say that because Aristotle said that the sun revolves around the earth, and Galileo said that the earth revolves around the sun, that the Truth changed. Not at all.

Galileo would have agreed with Aristotle completely, if he were able to go back in time and have a chat.

How can I say that? Because in conversation they would have understood that within the context of the knowledge Aristotle had:

Unaided Visual perceptions of the Sun rising in the East, traversing the sky, and setting in the West, with no other corroborating or conflicting data, they would have been able to agree that, yes it appears that the Sun IS moving across the sky in a circular fashion, and by extension, most likely continues a full circuit around the earth - no idea of parking in Apollo's stables here.

If you object to that, go outside and tell me what it looks like to you, and what you think it would have looked like if the Sun actually DID revolve around the earth?

With Galileo's additional information, tools and backing data, Aristotle would have excitedly agreed that within the expanded context of information, amazingly it is the Earth that revolves around the Sun. Then they both would have fallen into excited conversation about what it might be that caused the earth to stay in such an orbit, and why did things stay put on the earth's surface. With those two brains together, they might have been able to do the further research needed to discover the law of Gravity centuries before Issac Newton.

Maybe.

The results we expect from a given context may appear to change as situations develop, and our knowledge deepens, but that's ony because there is some contextual piece of data which we are not aware of, which is changing without our knowledge.

At best you could say that we tend to continue using the same Label for different contexts, which gives the appearance of the Truth changing, but the Truth itself is sturdy stuff, it doesn't change.

Van, believe what you will of me, but it seems you are wildly projecting. You accuse me of not "not personally strong enough to engage in a back and forth over your ideas, but instead jumped from directly to the typical leftist-I'm-an-Offended-Victim! mode of 'response'".

Come on, this is ludicrous. I am engaging in a back and forth as time allows--but I am not engaging in the more trollish posts, because there is no point.

One of the things I look for in conversation is the degree to which the other has a kind of fluidity and openness; I have not seen that here, at least not to a large degree.

As for "leftist victim" crap, am I really playing the victim? I am merely pointing out the obvious: that this blog is more a place to preach to the choir and for the choir to agree among themselves, then it is for different views to be entertained and thus inclusive of an evolutionary dynamic to consciousness.

I do admit to being a bit catty with some of my remarks, but not anywhere equal to what I've received in kind. Am I being a victim by saying that or merely expressing what I think is truth?

Or is truth something only classical liberals own stock in?

One of the reasons I am not, at least in your mind, "arguing my position," is that I just don't think that way. I will argue a position in a specific context, but for the most part my views are ever-changing, evolving, and fluid. This does not mean I am wishy-washy in a postmodern sense, but that I have included the "good news" of postmodernism: relative knowledge, contextualism, etc.

Now you drop your color coded gobbledygook as if it had actual content and meaning outside your integral clique...

I'm curious: have you read Wilber? Do you have first-hand experience with the "color coded gobbledygook" or are you just bashing what you don't understand?

Ok, here's a suggestion, take your "I'm offended"-seeking blue turquoise integralism and stick it where the 'fuller expression' don't shine.

Are you serious? Is this the kind of maturity that Robert Godwin says classical liberalism embodies?

MikeZ, you bring up a good point which relates to my problem with how "Leftism" is being used on this blog, as a catchall phrase and charicature of everything that Godwinian classical liberalism despises.

There are no distinctions made, anything at all leftish becomes Leftist.

You also make a very important point that truth is largely transient, that the only thing that we can say with absolute assurity is that "God is"--or as I would say, "something is going on." Everything else is, at the least, subject to interpretation.

This is the big problem with advocating Absolute Truth, and equating it with objective truth (facts). How often does one equate one's own viewpoint with Absolute Truth? Not only is this the height of hubris, but it inhibits further development (i.e. if we think we are finished we cannot grow further).

I will also add that come at this discussion from more of a "spiritual philosophical" approach than a political one; my experience is more with integral spiritual study and practice than with political systems, so I will be the first to point out that I am out of my depth when we get into the intricacies of different political philosophies. But at the core, we are talking about two aspects of being--left/liberal and right/conservative--that are polar and ultimately complementary. What I see Robert Godwin doing--and others on this board--is compare the "healthy" aspects of one (the conservative in the form of classical liberalism) with a "pathological" extreme charicature of liberalism (the Left).

integralist,"There are no distinctions made, anything at all leftish becomes Leftist."

This is typical of the source view behind leftists, seizing on perceptuals such as "leftish" "leftist", and missing the core meaning behind both, it is the tendency, even motus operandi of mistaking surface appearances, for the philosophical methods underlying them.

You get so wrapped up in the surface features of "\" and "/" and saying that we are confusing them, that you not only don't see the "|" beneath them which unites them and from which they both grow out from, but you also completely miss the fact that not only are the left "\" and "/" affixed to the top of a "|", but that they form a "Y", which is a single letter in an alphabet, which can be used with others to form words.

I've heard many ways of attempting to diferentiate between Leftists and Conservatives (and if you do just a little investigation at this site, you'll find enormous amounts of thoughtful discussion about what lays behind the two), but I think the key may be that the leftist (a quick shorthand reference might be rabidly secular - but even more fundamental to that is the rejection of principle - see John Dewey for a hint of an example) separates information, arranging it spreadout upon a table, whereas a Conservative will tend to want to combine and integrate information.

"This is the big problem with advocating Absolute Truth, and equating it with objective truth (facts). " The problem here is not understanding the relationship between fact and Truth. Truth can be seen as an ever expanding and widening set of contextual integrations, which display different appearances as more or less contextual information is available. The Truth doesn't change, only the amount of it you can see (see my comment above re: Aristotle & Galileo). The Leftist refuses to see that what Aristotle saw about the sun & earth's relational movements was the same as Galileo saw, but that Galileo saw more and so more was revealed to him.

The extremes of both will tend to different sides of the coin of error - the leftist sees all as separate, the extreme conservative refuses to see that Truth is ever revealing. These types can be seen in the rabidly secular leftist, and the fundamentalis literalist conservative. Neither survive here long.

Here's a visual image of this conceptual process.

Picture the common childs toys of numerous discs ranging from tiny to large, each with a hole through the center, half being circular, half square, and numerous round & squared posts.

The extreme leftist will tend to want to arrange them flat, perhaps by color & central hole style - the extreme conservative will want to stack them, large on the bottom ranging up to the top, with the axle through the center.

The leftist sees that stacking as rigid and dogmatic, the conservative sees the arranging as random and chaotic. Both styles are subject to problems, perhaps the conservative overstacks his discs, but he retains a central meaning, a closeness between discs, and pyramidal shapes formed from their stacks that the leftist will never see. The leftist is able to perhaps see more of the discs surfaces, more color, more shape, but he loses nearly relational meaning between the discs - all is separate, unintegrated.

I'll take the stack & integrated over the scattered and laid bare, anyday.

By the way, note that with Mikez comment earlier, which I disagreed with, and see as a fundamental trait of leftist thought (relativism, etc), there was no "attack", it was an idea, to be fleshed out, and he may develop it further in relation to othe posts and I'll do the same, back and forth - productive and interesting. There are many regular commetors here with whom I disagree on many fundamental points, but do so happily (Hey Joseph! Vittles!), and look forward to the exchanges.

But their comments, as with Mikez's above have a style, manners & intent which your earlier comments (and the beginning of this last of yours) lack, or are overlaid by. See RC's earlier comment about overall style of content, and how they are perceived quite differently because of it. And by the way, as I've mentioned is several earlier comments to posts, I don't know much about Wilber's material, I couldn't get past the content of his promo .pdf - I see no value in assigning arbitrary color coding in place of developing the actual conceptual content adequately available in history & philosophy. Perhaps this is my loss.

However, casually tossing about such terms in a setting where it is unlikely that the participants are at all familiar lacks a certain savy, and borders on rudeness.

If I walk up to a group of people who are perhaps discussing blogs and websites, and begin blathering on about XML, PHP, HTTP, info packets and IIS Server configurations - even though there are reams of valuable data and meaning behind each of those acronyms, it would be meaningless to them, not because of their intelligence, but their contextual understanding. It would also be foolish of me, and no doubt I'd soon get the cold shoulder from those people, and rightly so for my (perhaps unconcsious) rudeness.

RIVERC said..."...,when he (Luther) had the choice of giving back the church to the laity or continue elevating the clergy."

and "NOTE: For various reasons, Luther declined to give the church back to the laity--and thus doomed the Reformation to being a step rather than a leap towards Truth."

I agree RC, he hesitated to give it back to the laity becuz in those days the laity were more prone to development of heresies and as yet were not mature enuf to handle the new-found freedoms well. Luther understood the necessity of being the Shepherd; and he also intended to train the laity to be able to progressively handle certain aspects of church function more and more in order to decentralize the power from concentrating same as in the Catholic Church.

Luther of course has his subjects where he was not on target (transubstantiation, Jews, Copernicus/Gallileo) and some are even understandable given certain contexts of his day & limited knowledge of the 1500s compared to now. Its still no reason to denigrate Luthers great accomplishments or throw them out like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I certainly would not say The Father of The Reformation was a "tragic figure" as Sal says. Thats a bit uncharitable considering all that Luther accomplished so that we Protestants have the liberty today to worship as we do no longer under the yoke of CatholicISM.

Jim Jones, in contrast, was a "tragic figure" not to mention being a murderer.

VAN SAID: "On the other hand, had I seen your reply to Ximeze, I wouldn't have bothered."

Are you kidding? What sort of immature aggression is this? This is the sort of thing that is a red flag that points more to your own psychology (and projections) than anything I actually say.

I mean come on...get a little self awareness.

As for your reply, it seems that you erroneously believe that there is a given and static world "out there" that we merely need to see more and more of.

The enormous fallacy here--that postmodernism largely addressed (see Sellars's Myth of the Given)--is that as far as perception goes, there is always "somebody"--a subject--present. There is always intepretation. So it isn't simply a static Me perceiving a static World, but a dynamic Me perceiving a World that may be static or dynamic.

In other words, your worldview is strictly Age of Enlightenment and no more. What is that, 300 years old? No wonder you are so fused to a 300-year old political ideology.

Or to put it another way, we see the world as we are, not as it is. To claim otherwise is the ultimate hubris and egoity.

Agreed, Princess. I think that we often take for granted that while the vessels are equal (All Men are Created Equal) the circumstances and outcomes never are.

For instance if we read Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and James Rutz' Mega Shift we might be given to the impression that we've lost 2000 years!

But if we understand the evolution of man-kind, not of man himself as a genetic being, but the becoming of all of men, we realise that no matter how checkered and star-crossed our past as believers it was part of the plan.

I mean, how could a largely illiterate populace really be scholars of the word? It would take a miracle. And what if someone led them astray? Without a foundation of the word in its physical form, it is far easier to be deceived. (Note, it is not impossible even with the written word as we know.) It has been known to happen, that God teaches someone a language-- not just a message in a tongue or an interpretation-- but actually teaches them the language. Think though, of what a mass miracle it would have taken in the first century to ready each and every believer for the use of the Sword?

Such a 'creative' miracle is unusual indeed and usually serves a particular direct purpose. The general rule is that we are expected to lift ourselves up.

Anyway, to un-digress, we cannot say that Luther failed because he had problems -- anti-semitism, nico-latianism... we did not live in his era, in which illiteracy for one was rampant.

Luther regardless of his failings was not 'Tragic' which is to say did not fail to reform the church or make any progress. But the progress was limited by the man and the times.

It was like with Constantine the scroll that was the Knowledge of God was finally rolled back up-- and it has been unrolling (evolving) since.

Part of what wars are is the violent way in which man must re-integrate himself. Not all men are peaceful, and thus peace can often only be obtained through the sword.

Of course, on a smaller level, the false prophets always seem to cause unnecessary bloodshed and folly. But maybe that's just the Justice of the Almighty.

Simply put, Reality by its definition is the unchanging behind the changing. Postmodernism is a movement on the surface-- it equipped us to understand that language is fluid-- but like any philosophy it seeks to exalt itself over all others and claim also that meanings are all just as fluid.

To be True, to be Real, these are unchangeable. Our perception of them, since we are 'subject' may always be changing, and the layers of misunderstanding may be deep, but the Real, which is God, never changes.

You say 'enlightenment' -- which one? The European one, or the Skeptical, Scotch/American one? They are wholly different creations.

We who are classical liberals truly derive from the Skeptical Enlightenment, which like Music has changed little on the greater outward for many many years. What has changed is the unfolding within-- which is often un-see-able to one who knows it not.

The idea that 'tonal' music is dead, like the idea that the skeptical enlightenment & classical liberalism are dead is a fallacy. Simply because the outward has changed little or the underlying structure is identical does not mean they are not growing and evolving.

We are like boats on the current that is the Mind of the Almighty.

Most of what you have said is instigative and not actually substantive-- you have baited us to attack you, and then accused us of doing so as evidence against us.

As most of us are men, Men are like lions. They are not tame. Would you attack a lion, and then blame the lion for retaliating? Sure, a great lion might ignore you, but not ever, ever because he is tame.

Even the ladies here are like lionesses. And I wouldn't mess with no Lioness.

Nothing to do with aggression, just the weary realization, having gone down this road before with your spiritual brothers many many times before, and realizing what will be coming (and does a few lines further)

"This is the sort of thing that is a red flag"

Yes, it is.

"that points more to your own psychology"

Yep.

"(and projections)"

Nope. Projection is for those who believe that they can alter reality to suit their whims. I just get tired of trying to argue reality with people who don't believe that reality really exists.

"As for your reply, it seems that you erroneously believe that there is a given and static world "out there"".

And there we have it.

"Age of Enlightenment and no more. What is that, 300 years old?"

More like 400, but who's counting.

"No wonder you are so fused to a 300-year old political ideology."

Nah, just fused to our little corner of reality here on planet Earth, what is that, 4 billion years old?

"Or to put it another way, we see the world as we are, not as it is."

No. You cling to a world you want to exist, but never has, and never will, and that is the core of leftist ideology, hence our earlier, and correct identification of you as a Leftist with a capital "L". THe desire to pretend that through the magical incantations and complex weaving of words, the Truth can be defeated, papered over, hidden from Others, so that, at least in the view of Others, you will be able to be thought of being as you wish you were.

Seems like there is a bit of projection going on on the part of some of us, with Mr A telling Mr B what he said. And I'm not impressed with some of the "cute" repsonses to integralist. Do we really need to sidetrack into a course on Protagoras-style rhetoric, and on the varieties of logical fallacy?

Let's see if we can work out what Truth is, and what truth is.

I'd say that little-t-truth is what we know from experience and observation. Which is to say, most of physics. That kind of truth changes from year to year. The value of "c" gets more digits pinned down, same with Hubble's constant. Another kind of truth is that if you annoy the schoolyard bully, he'll probably clean your clock.

One thing common to those truths is that they seem to be dependent on the environment. We get better instruments, we go to a particular school, in a particular country.

I really think that big-T-Truth may be more elusive. The Truth you meet along the road may not be the Truth. I also somehow doubt that Truth can be captured in a 25-words or less bumper sticker. After all, it took Russell 3 volumes to talk about one of the Truths - mathematics - and at that, only a part of it.

True, the "left" (big or little "L"?) has much to answer for. But which left? The activist environmentalists like ELF? The socialists who would be overjoyed to have us all living under Communist principles? The lockstep PC crowd, who would control our thinking by imposing a speech morality?

In the original post, Dr Bob points out their counterfeit nature. I hadn't thought of it that way - but it is appropriate. They hold out a lemon and want us to call it an apple.

Now if integralist did come in with "vitriol and non-integralism", he has certainly toned down in recent posts. We all come into a new room with our pre-suppositions, our variously-rose-colored glasses, and we probably see what we've been taught to see, rather than what's really there. When I first read the OneCosmos blog, I thought, "wow, there's a really clever writer. I wonder if there's any substance behind that cleverness."

I was impressed enough to get the book, where I found even more cleverness, which might be hiding a glimpse at the (or a) Truth. But I plod on, marking time with one hand clapping.

In short, a plea for a little more civility.

I just found DiCentra's blog - well done! And she and he seem to have left the arena and entered the front parlor for civil discourse.

You still have a whole life ahead of you & have time to be nice about BS & think that is worthwhile to do so.

What happens, over is time, is that one's patience wears thin, it becomes more important, relative to the time left one, to be clear about spotting BS & doing what one can to nip it in the bud. And, it's a lot more fun than being nice.

Tell you what, if I'm still alive 3 decades from now, we'll have a chat about how differently you see it then. I prefict that you'll also enjoy the clarity that comes with age.

While I understand the sentiment, it is sometimes misplaced, there being a lesser application of the idea that "all evil needs is for good men to stand by and say nothing" that it is important to recognize(And as Ximeze said, within reason there is an element of fun to it. Pretending to an artificial sereneness is, well, artificial).

"I'd say that little-t-truth is what we know from experience and observation. Which is to say, most of physics. That kind of truth changes from year to year."

Again, neither that kind of truth, nor any other changes from year to year - our understanding of the details surrounding a given situation may change, but truth doesn't.

It may seem like a small, even picky point, but I assure you it is not - it holds the widest number of ramifications and impact for you life.

"I really think that big-T-Truth may be more elusive. The Truth you meet along the road may not be the Truth. I also somehow doubt that Truth can be captured in a 25-words or less bumper sticker."

Ultimately big T Truth (Humanities & Philosophy) does come down to the same nuts and bolts of reality - but it involves far more nuts and bolts. In a sense, physics has it easy - it only has to isolate and identify a physical thing.

Philosophy and the humanities deal with far more variables - though each can and should be traceable down to some physical existent in reality - beware those who tell you they don't - that's a tip off that something is attempting to be hidden.

Imagine the difference between a simple pair of dice, six surfaces each numerous combinations, but graspable. Now imagine a pair of Rubic's Cubes - still six sides each, but as with concepts, the content of each side can vary massively with just the slightest twist.

Mikez, that was a wondeful post--and I'm not just saying that because of your "plea for civility", but mainly because of your exceptional differentiation of (relative) truth and (Absolute) Truth.

What happens, as i see it, and what is largely happening here, is people tend to believe that their own (relative) truth is (Absolute) Truth. Van's exposition fits right into that category: he actually seems to believe that Truth is a more complex version of truth.

When you say that Truth is something far more elusive (than truth), I agree--which relates to what I've been saying here. We can know truths--but not Truth--with our minds.

Integralist said:..."We can know truths - but not Truth - with our minds."

AGAIN, You make the same repeated mistake in "seeing" too narrowly:

We can know truths, sure anybody can - but we can also know Truth - which IS Gods Absolute Truth. But you must have HIM to get the knowledge/experience of Truth. Ok??

Gnostic truth, any truth with small t is not what we seek - thats easy. Big T Truth is what we seek - thats harder but not impossible! God came here to give us Christ to give us the Holy Spirit (Believers) so that we can relate to Him UP the Vertical and not just stay living and existing flat along the horizontal YOU speak of.

We are here to find & experience & share the Verticality & Truth of God. Either You will do what it takes to get it, or you wont. Either you will do what it takes to know it, ort you wont know it.

The choice is yours, Integral. As we have chosen. And we do have something that you seem not to know/have. Why else are you here if your claims are correct? And what about the fact we prove your claims are not correct, that there IS a Higher Truth UP the Vertical??

You really must consider that possibility that you come here not to seek what you already know (you could go to other blogs for that), but to seek & find & experience that which is foreign to you - that being the Absolute Truth/God we speak of that you apparently do not believe exists.

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About Me

Location: Floating in His Cloud-Hidden Bobservatory, Inside the Centers for Spiritual Disease Control and Pretension, Tonga

Who spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and embarks upin a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!